In order to remove derogatory items from your credit report you have to dispute the credit bureaus. There are two options to do this.

1. Write a dispute letter

This option will require you to write a dispute letter. In this letter you will need to identify the negative mark and provide and explanation as to why it is inaccurate.

Reasons often include; not my account, amount is wrong, item is out of date and etcetera. You must send this letter to each credit bureau.

2. Hire a professional credit repair company.

Using this method the service will create a dispute letter on your behalf and send it to the bureaus. These services have advanced techniques to remove negative credit such as; debt validation, creditor direct intervention, and escalated dispute information requests.

I would suggest hiring a company if you have multiple negative listings on your credit history. However if you only have one or two negative listings you can remove them yourself.

Once the bureaus get your dispute letter and deem it valid they will conduct an investigation. If the item can not be verified then it must be deleted from you credit.

Be aware that it is common for bureaus to use stall tactics to avoid conducting investigations. This is because it costs the credit bureaus potential profits to conduct an investigation.

However the Fair Credit Reporting Act states that the bureaus must investigate disputes and if found unverifiable the listing must be removed. The hard part is getting the bureaus to deem you dispute letter valid.

If you are experiencing trouble with this I recommend hiring a professional. However you can get the bureaus to deem you letter valid with some persistence.

Frequently an investigation will result in a bad credit item being removed. This happens because many lenders are not willing to spend the resources to verify debts.

Which ever method you choose negative credit can be removed from your credit report. You do not have to wait the full seven years.